What is book-to-skill?
book-to-skill turns any technical book, document folder or collection of sources into a unified agent skill. You point it at a file, folder or glob, it distills the content into frameworks, decision rules, anti-patterns and per-chapter files, and your agent loads the skill on demand.
The generated skill contains a SKILL.md with core mental models and a chapter index, one file per chapter, a glossary of key terms, a patterns file with techniques, algorithms and design patterns, and a cheatsheet of decision tables and quick-reference rules. Chapter files are loaded on demand, so they do not count against the skill budget until you ask about that topic.
It works with any host that supports the open Agent Skills standard, including GitHub Copilot CLI, Amp, Claude Code, Codex, Hermes Agent, OpenCode and OpenClaw. The same extraction also applies to internal material such as architecture decision records, runbooks and onboarding guides. The README reports 24x to 51x fewer tokens than dumping the book into context to answer one question, measured on real books.
Key capabilities
- A SKILL.md with core mental models and a chapter index
- One file per chapter, loaded on demand
- A glossary of key terms with chapter references
- A patterns file of techniques, algorithms and design patterns
- A cheatsheet of decision tables and quick-reference rules
- Compatibility with hosts that support Agent Skills
Where book-to-skill fits
- Distillation Turns a file, folder, glob or list of sources into frameworks, decision rules, anti-patterns and per-chapter files. The output is structure rather than a summary.
- On-demand chapters Chapter files are loaded only when you ask about that topic, so they do not count against the skill budget.
- Reference files Generates a glossary, a patterns file and a cheatsheet of decision tables alongside the main SKILL.md.
- Input formats Reads PDF, EPUB, DOCX, HTML and RTF, and plain text, Markdown, reStructuredText and AsciiDoc need no extra dependencies.
- Operating modes Besides full conversion there are analyze-only, generate-from-analysis and update or fold-in modes.
- Internal documentation The same extraction works on architecture decision records, runbooks and onboarding guides.
- Publishing The converter can publish the generated skill to GitHub, private by default. The README advises keeping skills of third-party books private.
- Host support Output follows the open Agent Skills standard, so several agent hosts read the same SKILL.md.
Install
npx skills add virgiliojr94/book-to-skillReviews of book-to-skill
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